I LOVE the holidays. I love EVERYTHING about the holidays! But this year I thought I might be homesick since we are so far from home. Thankfully, Mike's sister Pam flew in last week and stayed through turkey day. It was so nice to have family here... it made it feel like Thanksgiving!
We did a lot while she was here. We started the week off by driving down to Monterey to visit the aquarium. The wind was blowing in Tahoe, so on our drive out of the basin, we stopped to capture some pictures of the powerful wind storm. Caples Lake... a pretty small lake... had waves big enough to surf!
The winds over the pass were strong enough to blow down trees...
We made it to Monterery just after lunch time and headed straight to the aquarium.
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| Pretty starfish. |
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| Sea otters playing in the bay... |
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| Sea otters napping inside the aquarium. |
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| Lots of jellyfish |
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| Mike's silhouette and a sea of moon jelly's. |
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| Cute little sea horse and fish |
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| A diver feeding the fish... |
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| BEAUTIFUL Monterey coastline |
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| And we got to see a beautiful sunset over Monterey. |
Then we drove north... stopped in Santa Cruz for dinner on the boardwalk... and continued on to San Francisco. We stayed the night in Fisherman's Wharf and walked around the city the next day. Each time we visit, I fall a little more in love with San Fran.
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| The sun coming up over the Bay Bridge |
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| Sun coming up over Alcatraz... |
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| And the early morning sunrise on the Golden Gate Bridge. |
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| Sea Lions playing in the harbor... |
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| ... and tons of sea lions sunbathing. |
We were able to see most of the big tourist attractions, even though we only had a few hours in the city before we needed to head back to Tahoe.
On the way home, we HAD to stop by a few wineries...
We finally made it back to Tahoe and stayed in the basin for the rest of the week.
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| Home Sweet Home |
The rest of the week was full of sightseeing for Pam. We were even able to do a little skiing. Thursday I spent the morning in the kitchen... cooking turkey, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, corn, green beans, rolls... Mike made mashed potatoes... and we had apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin amaretto cheesecake for dessert. We ate til we were full... we watched the parade... the dog show... several football games... and Christmas movies! A PERFECT Thanksgiving!
Friday, we headed out in to the woods with our saw in hand to find the "perfect" Christmas tree. We quickly realized we needed to lower our standards... none of the trees we saw looked like the full, perfectly shaped Frasier firs we used to get in NC. Luckily, Mike spotted a really good tree... we chopped it down... came home... opened some wine... pulled out the leftovers... and began eating and decorating!
Thanks Pam for visiting! We loved having you for Thanksgiving! Please come back to visit ANY time you want.
Hope everyone reading this had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now, we have a few short weeks until Christmas!
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